The Tang Soo Do (Tangsudo) is Korean martial art, with Japanese influences, so is often called Korean karate. It is born from the unification of the Hwarang styles: Hwa Rang Do, KwonBop, Tae Kyun, Taekkyon, Subak, Soo Bahk, Tars Soo. The styles of the regions in which was divided the Chorea.

Unified the three kingdoms and the various regions, in 1790 also fighting styles were unified in a single book, written from Warrior Baek Dong-soo. The term most used for this form of fighting was Soo Bahk Ki or Subak. since distinguished from Hwa Rang Do, more connected to military techniques generally, while the subak is mainly specialized to combat techniques with bare hands.

During the Japanese occupation, that began in the first 900 century and ended with the end of World War II, the Korean martial arts were declared illegal, and were imposed the Japanese ones. Some Korean schools resisted secretly, enriching themselves with the Japanese techniques, and enriching the Japanese ones. After the Japanese occupation rised again many Korean martial arts schools, and in 1955 it was decided to merge them with the name of Tae Soo Do. In 1961 was born the Association of Korean Tae Soo Do, and were eliminated dangerous techniques to achieve a competitive sport, but were distortied the old Korean martial art (techniques which survived in hapkido)

In 1964, the Tae Soo do organization changed its name in Korean Taekwondo Association. Modernizing the original art until it became an Olympic sport, but leading to a split of the traditional schools, which remained faithful to the old style and chose the emigration strategy, teaching outside of Korea. In 1968 was born the World Association of Tang Soo Do, founded by Shin Jae Chul, a student of Master Kwang kee.

Today Tae Soo do is a martial art well known in the world, which counts among its practitioners also the actor Chuck Norris.

The Tang Soo Do techniques are simple and effective. Blocks, strikes, kicks. Shots with closed hands and knife hands. The kicks, as in Tae Do Qwon, are very refined, and also used for blocking.

There are forms (hyong), collected to the classic forms of karate.

The fighting in Tang Soo Do is always controlled, never full contact, lineally with the philosophy of control, calm and not violence that pervades the lessons and the teaching of this discipline, and also with the theory that only a controlled workout on the blow allows to strike the blow in a real situation of danger with force and precision (theory on which I find difficult to agree completely)

Then there is the self-defense training, holds, joint look, chokes, and the study of the pressure points.

Finally, there are the breaking techniques (wooden boards) useful to demonstrate the effectiveness of the techniques learned.